How to Turn Cities Into Biketopias? Make it Harder to Drive There

A Queens-based motorcycle courier who goes by the mononym of Quentin echoes Berlanga’s sentiment, noting however New York’s streets abruptly consciousness much spacious than ever.

“These conscionable a batch much elbow country now,” Quentin says, admitting that portion of him misses the traffic, arsenic the gridlock often made his occupation much exciting. “The Avenues, particularly done Midtown, conscionable look wide open, and you tin archer determination are truthful galore little cars connected the road.”

But it’s not lone couriers enjoying the City’s little trafficked streets. Though the city’s bike-sharing platform, CitiBike, has yet to stock ridership accusation from January, determination simply look to beryllium much radical connected bikes than astatine comparable times successful years past.

“Even successful this unusually acold winter, we’re seeing much radical biking since congestion pricing took effect,” says Ken Podziba, manager of the advocacy nonprofit Bike New York. “But the existent excitement volition travel with warmer weather, arsenic we witnesser a melodramatic shift—fewer cars and much bikes filling the metropolis streets.”

To Podziba’s point, what mightiness hap erstwhile the somesthesia ticks up? Will Manhattan abruptly look similar Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Paris, oregon Oslo, the second 2 of which precocious joined the inclination of centering bicycle transport successful their municipality design? And if ridership skyrockets, volition the metropolis instrumentality the pb from its legion of motorcycle riders and instrumentality much and safer means for radical to traverse the metropolis via bike?

The archetypal metropolis that typically comes to caput astatine the notation of an municipality biking halfway is Amsterdam. Renowned for its hundreds of miles of motorcycle lanes, its protected motorcycle infrastructure, and its cycling-happy residents, galore of whom question wrong the metropolis astir exclusively by bike, the Dutch superior is an planetary beacon for bicycle-centric municipality planning.

However, what you whitethorn not cognize is that the Dutch city’s absorption connected bicycling infrastructure is simply a comparatively caller phenomenon.

In 1971, aft a fewer decades of postwar boom, 3,300 Amsterdammers were killed successful postulation accidents. Four 100 of them were children. In the aftermath of that bloody year, a assortment of advocacy groups began staging citywide protests, fiercely opposing the city’s increasing dependence connected cars and urging lawmakers to amended see bicyclists and pedestrians. Serendipitously, a fewer years later, during the 1973 lipid situation that saw the terms of lipid quadruple, the Dutch authorities unopen down respective metropolis streets connected Sundays, urging citizens to bask traffic-free motorways.

By the 1980s, towns and cities crossed the Netherlands started to dilatory present peculiar bicycle-only routes, which led to networks of city-wide bicycle paths. Today, the Netherlands counts immoderate 30,000 miles of motorcycle paths dispersed crossed the country’s 12,900 quadrate miles, portion much than a 4th of each trips successful the state are made by bicycle.